Four Brave (Sorta Kinda) Champions
by HomestarOtaku
Summary: Four brave mercenaries-turned elite knights of the kingdom of...uh...whatever...are charged with saving princesses, killing bad guys, recovering a powerful crystal thingie, killing more bad guys, coming to grips with their pasts, finding treasure, killing even more gad buys...wait. Who wrote this intro? Image by Gee Man.
1. Prologue

Prologue

"You have something that belongs to me," a gentle but sinister voice boomed through the massive throne room.

From atop the regal throne, the old, decorated king sat frozen with fear as a dark, menacing, crimson-hooded figure approached him. The figure's fell wand crackled and snapped in his hand.

"H-how dare you!" he stuttered and wheezed. "Who do you th-th-th-think you are?"

"Oh, nobody in particular," the hooded figure replied. "Just someone here to claim what's rightfully mine."

"But...why...?"

"Didn't I just explain it to you? Do you even know what kind of power rests atop that booster seat you call a throne?"

"Booster seat?!"

"I thought not."

The figure's amber bead eyes crept up from the king's aged, bearded visage to the massive, white crystal glowing above his crowned head. With little so much as a flick of his wrist, he summoned the air around him to grasp a sneaking knight clad in gray armor by his throat, strangle him, and launch him into the doorway to the barracks beneath the throne. For good measure, he also sent a stray arrow after the hapless knight.

"Now, before we are again so rudely interrupted, your majesty, let me tell you exactly what it is I want..."


	2. Chapter 1: Home Castle

Chapter 1: Home Castle

The barracks. A huge space lined with hay, food, and drink for the many soldiers gathered there. All but four were clad in cloud gray armor, laid back, enjoying what they thought was another day of lasting peace.

The four who stood out carried about their own business.

One, clad in blood red and secluded in a corner, knelt before his planted longsword in fervent prayer, his shield resting beside him. His dark scarlet beard and scalp stubble seemed to try desperately to spring forth from his deep brown, strong-jawed visage.

Another, clad in iron blue, stroked his silvery katana again and again with a polishing rock as he sat on a stool. Not bothering to turn his freckle-spotted cream face to the other soldiers, he paused to bat his disheveled blond bangs away from his sky blue eyes.

A third, clad in flaming orange, danced feverishly at the middle of the room, both obeying and defying the music, his shield gauntlet doing little to hinder his moves. Slivers of his jade green eyes peeked out of his almost deathly pale face as his mud brown mop of a haircut. His stubby but sturdy war hammer rested beside a nearby wine barrel.

And a fourth, clad in sickly green, strangled a training dummy and punched its head, almost losing track of his halberd. From within his faded goldenrod face, his red brown glare remained fixed on the dummy, the streaks of dark red on his otherwise black hair seeming to twitch with each punch.

These four, the other knights say, were once members of the royal guard, elite of the elite. As well as being fearsome warriors throughout their training days, they were also deft magic users, trained in both the martial and elemental arts. They had briefly left the royal guard behind for lives as mercenaries-whom the bards and minstrels had sung of as the Castle Crashers-but returned to the king's side with the onset of a great and terrible war. Now back in the company of their brethren in arms, they sat idle, watching the other knights grow complacent with this long time of undisturbed peace.

Until...

BAM! CRUNK! CLUMP!

A gray knight came tumbling down the stairs, his side gored by an arrow. He landed face down at the bottom, barely alive, leaving all else in the room to gasp...except of course for the Castle Crashers, who were too busy with their own business. Another gray knight rushed to the fallen knight's side and knelt beside him.

"Gray Knight 82!" he cried out. "What happened?!"

"..." said the dying knight.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you."

"Wi...z...zard..."

An eerie silence gripped the room as Gray Knight 82 breathed his last.

"He's dead, isn't he?" said a third gray knight, urging the second knight to check his vitals.

"Yep," he confirmed. "Dead as dirt."

"How tragic..."

"Well, you know what time it is," said a fourth gray knight, picking up his sword.

And with that, the gray knights gathered as one mass and charged up the stairs to meet their fallen comrade's assailant. Only the four knights of the Castle Crashers remained, the red and blue the first to notice their gray counterparts' absence.

"Wait," said the orange knight as he stopped dancing. "What's going on?"

"You heard what he said, did you not, Lumiere?" said the red knight, rising from his knees. "A fell presence falls upon us now."

"Oh, right, because generic guys suddenly showing up dying is always a bad sign, isn't it?"

The green knight stopped to glance at his red and orange companions before punching the dummy one last time. "Did someone say dying?"

"Yes, Saul," said the blue knight, sheathing his katana. "And if that gray knight's death means anything, it can only mean one thing."

"Indeed, Anton," replied the red knight. "We are once more called to serve our king and land in their hour of need."

"And that means we get girls, right?" added the orange knight.

"And kill people?" asked the green knight.

"...Sure," sighed the blue knight. "Why not?"

The red knight uprooted his sword, scooped up his shield, and brandished both high to the doorway at the top of the stairs. "Then come, my brothers! By our honor, we shall defend this kingdom with our lives! To battle!"

"But first, we need our helmets, Gottfried."

"Oh, yes. Of course. Our helmets."

Without another word, the four knights donned their cylindrical helmets, identical in all but the color of their trimmings, which matched their respective armor. Then, they readied their weapons, eyes steeled for the trials that awaited them.

* * *

Upon reaching the top of the stairwell, they entered the throne room to the din of great battle outside.

"Where have you guys been?" spat the king from atop his throne. "The Evil Wizard has already made off-"

"Wait a sec," said Lumiere (the orange knight). "Evil Wizard? I thought we offed that guy years ago."

"Apparently not," said Anton (the blue knight), "considering that whatever that crystal was that used to be on the king's throne is gone now."

Indeed, the white crystal that once adorned the king's throne was missing.

"Well, don't just stand there like idiots!" hollered the king. "After him! And bring back that crystal!"

"At once, my liege!" boomed Gottfried (the red knight), signaling his comrades to follow suit. "This way, Castle Crashers!"

"Hold it," said Lumiere as he and his fellow knights followed their leader. "How do we know which way the Evil Wizard went?"

"Just listen for the screaming and the horror," said Anton.

"And the more screaming as I chop people to bits," added Saul (the green knight), scarce able to contain his excitement.

"Yeah. Just make sure we're not three of those people."

Onward the Castle Crashers ventured, and it was not long before they encountered a trio of villagers-one of whom was inexplicably on fire-fleeing from a squad of horn-helmed barbarians. Usually little more than a nuisance on the countryside, guilty of little more than ransacking, pillaging, kidnapping, and raping, these barbarians attacked with seemingly unnatural vigor. They actually intended to kill people.

The Castle Crashers thus ran out to meet them, weapons bared, magic charged. Their first real battle in a long time.

"Oh, and I've been meaning to ask," said Lumiere, "but 'Castle Crashers?' Who came up with that name?"

"You did," said Anton. "Remember what happened at Lightbringer's Peak?"

"You mean before or after the exploding bacon?" asked Saul.

"...Never mind. Just keep fighting."

They made...relatively short work of their barbarian foes and proceeded to climb the stairs. At the top, they saw another squad of barbarians, taking away four princesses, each clothed in a dress to match a different Castle Crasher.

"Help me!" cried out the red-dressed damsel, her bright orange curls swaying almost in time with her arms and tear-filled green eyes.

"Somebody, please!" yelled the green-dressed damsel, her eyes shut behind her jet black tatters for hair.

"You'd better pray I don't get loose!" snarled the blue-dressed damsel, pounding her captor's back like a drum as her blond hair and blue eyes burned with anger and desperation.

"Mmmmmmph!" brayed the purple-haired, orange-dressed damsel, dragged by her ankle as her face scraped the castle floor.

"Hey," said Lumiere. "Aren't those the princesses who came here on diplomatic missions last week?"

"Indeed," said Gottfried. "I believe they are."

"Forget about them," said Anton. "We'll leave them to the royal guards."

"B-b-b-but...what about the kidnappers? And the killing of the kidnappers and the murder?" sputtered Saul.

"Our mission is to find that wizard and retrieve that crystal, not rescue damsels in distress."

"Saul's cruel bloodlust aside, we cannot simply abandon them," said Gottfried.

"Why not?"

"Were we to abandon those four maidens, we would be no better than the Evil Wizard."

"We'd be no worse either. And who's to say that the wizard is evil? Who's not to say we are?"

"What are you talking about?" said Lumiere.

"Do you know how many people we've killed? More than I'd care to count, that's for sure."

"They started it."

"Other people payed us to off them, didn't they?"

"Well...yeah."

"After the scoundrels we were paid to kill had killed others," added Gottfried. "But the money was never the issue. What was the issue was that we had done good and they had done evil."

"There's no such thing as good or evil," said Anton. "It's just a matter of perspective."

"By that same argument, there is every such thing as good and evil. We simply side with the highest calling possible from our flawed humanity."

"Yeah," said Lumiere. "Besides, we've been over this about a million times. Who do you think is the leader of this group?"

"Uh, guys?" said Saul. "Those barbarian guys are getting away."

Turning back to their comrade, Gottfried, Anton, and Lumiere saw Saul standing amidst a thick carpet of mangled body parts and noxious liquid. His halberd's head dripped with blood and magical venom. The poisoned, splintered remains of a nearby siege tower leaned against the battlements.

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," shivered Lumiere.


	3. Chapter 2: The Castle Keep

Chapter 2: The Castle Keep

The din of almost a dozen weapons clashing and hacking greeted the four champions as they entered the keep. At the base of the stairs stood a lone gray knight against another squad of barbarians. Though he fought well, he was slowly losing ground as the barbarians closed in around him.

"We must aid him," said Gottfried. "Forward, my brothers!"

"Wait. Why?" said Lumiere. "He's just going to die sometime later on this journey of ours."

"How will we know it is him?"

"He's a generic soldier. Those guys never live all the way through."

"Who cares?" said Saul, charging down the stairwell with his halberd brandished high. "FIGHTY TIME! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD!"

The green knight dove headlong into the fray, whirling his halberd like a toxic tornado as he hacked his way through first one, then another barbarian. Without another word, the others followed him. Anton slid down on a sled of flash ice, kicking it off into the head of a third barbarian. Gottfried loosed a stream of lightning from his sword to decimate a fourth. And Lumiere, his hammer alight with mystic fire, slammed a mighty fireball into a fifth. The last barbarian found himself skewered on the gray knight's sword.

The skirmish won, the Castle Crashers turned to see a peasant with straw-scraggly hair creeping out from behind the nearby counter. The gray knight marched through the gate ahead.

"Boy am I glad to see you guys," he said.

"Just doing our job," said Anton.

"Of course you are. Thanks to you, though, I can reopen my shop."

"You have a shop?" said Saul.

"How else do you think we peasants get the money to pay your taxes?"

"Point taken, good sir," said Gottfried. "What wares do you carry?"

"You mean what am I willing to sell? I'm afraid all I've got is this." The peasant waved his arm to his side, and there sat a massive cache of potions and swords. Anton sheathed his katana, took up one of the swords on sale, and waved it about as easily as if it was a butter knife. He then took off his glove and ran his finger along its edge. At last, he banged it several times against the counter before it broke in two.

"No wonder the gray knights die so often," he quipped, discarding the broken sword. "This kingdom should really invest in better quality steel."

"Good thing this guy's got so many potions, though," said Lumiere, swiping one of the tangerine-sized bottles of crimson elixir and leaving a handful of gold coins in its place. "Good to the last drop in more ways than one. Now, why can't the king invest in these?"

"To be fair, he has his hands full with other matters throughout the land," said Gottfried. "No one man can do everything."

"True. True."

"Everyone, buy as many potions as you can reasonably carry. We may need them."

They complied, each carrying five and paying the peasant shopkeeper in kind.

"Godspeed," said Gottfried.

"Thanks," said Anton.

"Glad we could help you. Thanks a lot, buddy. See you in the end credits," said Lumiere.

"What end credits?" said Saul.


	4. Chapter 3: Barbarian War

Chapter 3: Barbarian War

KRACKOOM!

The boom of a heavy cannonball from out of the sky rattled the castle gate, its drawbridge previously lowered to let the gray knights face the oncoming barbarians. Onto this bridge strode the Castle Crashers, weapons at the ready. They only had to look once to see how the battle - no, the slaughter - was faring.

"Outnumbered, outgunned, and getting massacred," said Lumiere. "Even by generic fighter standards, this is pretty messed up."

"Indeed," concurred Gottfried. "The gray knights are in dire straits this day."

"I warned them about their equipment at the end of the last war," quipped Anton.

KRACKOOM!

Another cannonball crashed down nearby, smearing a defending gray knight into a gory pulp. A spray of his blood spattered onto Saul's helmet, bidding the advancing barbarians to press their assault.

"Never mind," said Saul. "Can we just get to killing?"

A barbarian's arrow glancing off Lumiere's helmet confirmed this motion.

"Forward, Castle Crashers!" boomed Gottfried. "This day, we fight!"

They charged across the bridge and into the fray. Their endless years of training served them well as they cut through their admittedly formidable foes. From Gottfried's streams of deadly lightning and Lumiere's burning blasts of fire to Anton's speedy finesse and mobility and Saul's brute strength and ferocity, the Castle Crashers fought with vigor unlike any experienced in a long time. At last, they vanquished their foes, but more barbarians approached. The remaining gray knights stood to face them head on.

The Castle Crashers advanced to aid them.

As one barbarian beat down a gray knight, an intervening bolt of lightning from Gottfried's sword blasted the barbarian away. The grateful gray knight rose to his feet and picked up what little remained of his sword for battle. More barbarians closed in around the five knights, but the Castle Crashers cut them down and/or blasted them to smithereens all the same. There was one instance when two barbarians tried to pull Lumiere apart by his arms, but he quickly torched them.

Proceeding further, they spotted another gray knight futilely attempting to resuscitate his fallen comrade, oblivious to the hooded thief approaching him from behind. There would be time to mourn the dead later; Anton quickly cut down the thief before he could raise his bow. As he glimpsed the curved instrument of war, its bowstring still freshly taut, he scooped it up and mounted it on his back.

"This'll come in handy," he thought to himself.

All around the Castle Crashers, the barbarian horde advanced, but still the four brave champions carried on. Well, there was that one time when Gottfried had an iron crossbow bolt stuck in his right buttock, that other time where several barbarians dog piled Anton (before he cut them all off of him), and that time where Saul accidentally gassed Lumiere along with several other barbarians with a burst of poison magic. Come to think of it, the fight was a lot rougher for the Castle Crashers than some historians and bards would want to tell of.

But I digress.

Eventually, the four heroes reached the outer palisade of the barbarian stronghold, where they were greeted by a large wooden tank with a flaming ram's head likeness of metal mounted on its front. Atop its back rested two great cannons poised to rain death on anyone who stood in its way.

"Fear the Ram-Mobile!" a gruff voice boomed from inside. "How...aptly named..." said Lumiere moments before it slammed into him.

"Castle Crashers, attack!" cried Gottfried as he leaped at the oncoming vehicle. With swing after swing of his sword, he chipped away at the Ram-Mobile's shell. The boom of one of its cannons did little to faze him until the cannonball crashed down near Anton and Saul. Distracted, Gottfried paused his assault to glance back, but found relief in seeing them unharmed. He turned back to see the vehicle's shell being cranked up to reveal its barbarian crew.

One of the barbarians pounced on Gottfried and tackled him to the ground, but the red knight flipped him over with his shield. Anton and Saul charged at the tank, their weapons brandished high to aid their leader. As Anton neared the tank, he kicked his flying ice board out from under him, letting it skewer another bandit as Saul jammed his halberd into Gottfried's attacker. A second cannonball crashed down, this time scattering the three knights as the tank lowered is shell.

Lumiere staggered to his feet, but the splash of a third cannonball bowled him back down.

"This is taking too long," said Saul. "I came here to kill stuff, not break stuff."

Anton, recovering from the splash of a fourth cannonball, eyed the crossbow bolt from eight paragraphs ago as he finally pulled it out of Gottfried's buttock. "Gottfried," he barked, "cover me!"

Gottfried complied, and Anton charged at the Ram-Mobile. Sidestepping its next charge, he jammed the bolt into one of the wheels, letting the vehicle grind to a halt. The shell rose again, and this time, the entire crew jumped out for battle. Again, the Castle Crashers found themselves in pitched combat, but this time, the barbarians seemed set to overwhelm them. All except Lumiere, of course; he was busy dusting himself off from his repeated knockdowns. That is, until he saw the Ram-Mobile's exposed engine. Without a second thought, he conjured a fireball in his palm and heaved it in a high arc.

KADOOJ!

In an instant, the Ram-Mobile was replaced by a towering inferno, and its barbarian crew inexplicably flopped on the ground, dead.

"Let me guess," said Anton. "All according to plan."

"Not exactly," said Gottfried. "I simply acted out of necessity. But that matters not for now. Our goal remains in sight."

"Wait. You mean our goal is before or after those random barbarians I killed in their sleep after Lumiere blew up the Ram-Mobile?" asked Saul, his halberd drenched in fresh blood.

"Damn it, Saul," groaned Lumiere.

* * *

So, after yet another boring excursion across a bridge-type thing infested with more barbarians, the Castle Crashers finally entered a decrepit arena, its stands packed with barbarian spectators. At the far end, before a large red door with a yellow frowny face emblazoned on it stood a beefy barbarian, his arms and torso seeming too large for his legs. He let out a battle roar that sounded more like a bear yawn before the door exploded loose from its hinges and flattened him. Into the arena stepped a colossal barbarian chieftain, his horned mask almost a part of his already grotesque face. On his back rested a huge plank covered with iron spikes.

"That's a big barbarian," gasped Lumiere.

"Yes, we can see that," said Anton.

"Brega! Brega!" chanted the crowd of barbarians from the stands.

"And the crowd doesn't like us at all," said Lumiere.

"Yes, we can hear that," said Anton.

The massive barbarian charged at the Castle Crashers, belting Gottfried away with a mighty swing of his fist. The red knight's shield mitigated the damage from the punch itself, but he had to spring up on his own to recover. A ripple of applause washed over the crowd. The other Castle Crashers rushed the barbarian boss with vigor and vim, but to little avail as he beat them back with the plank on his back. Anton and Saul landed on their feet, Lumiere his face. Anton dove at the chieftain's legs with his katana brandished. He missed as the giant jumped over him and barely flinched in the face of first a crash from Saul's halberd, then a fireball from Lumiere. He then rushed at the orange knight and flattened him with his plank.

At the farthest row of the stands, three of the four captive princesses were hoisted away, leaving the red princess tied to a large wooden pole. Only Gottfried paid this deed heed...before Lumiere came skidding at his feet.

"Dude, what this guy eat for breakfast?! Jet fuel?!" squealed Lumiere as he rose up.

On cue, the barbarian boss pulled forth a giant glass bottle of noxious liquid and gulped it down.

"Apparently, so," grunted Anton.

One obnoxious belch later, he sailed across the arena, leaving behind a trail of rancid fire that scorched Lumiere. The Castle Crashers regrouped at the far end of the arena, seeing their husky foe tired.

"Saul, to my shield!" shouted Gottfried.

"Oh, yeah!" squealed Saul, hopping onto Gottfried's shield.

"Lumiere, light him!"

"Done," said Lumiere, setting fire to the head of Saul's halberd.

"Anton, strike at the legs again!"

"Didn't you see what he-?" started Anton.

"Just do it!"

As the Husky Barbarian Chieftain lunged forward, Gottfried blasted Saul into the air off his shield, and Anton formed a hoverboard of ice and rode out to lash at the giant's legs. Once again, the barbarian jumped over him, but this time, he met a mighty surge of lightning from Gottfried's sword, followed quickly by the descending Saul's fire-infused halberd to the skull.

YYKABOOJ!

The fire and electricity reacted together to create a massive explosion that felled the barbarian. Anton kicked off of his board to rejoin Gottfried and Lumiere. Saul flipped back and landed beside his comrades, dazed and smoking but still able to fight.

The entire crowd was stunned silent until...

"Boo!" Saul barked, forcing the barbarians to flee the stands like whimpering puppies. "Wait! Come back! We only want to kill you a little bit!"

"Let them go," said Gottfried, returning his attention to the red princess.

"Help! Please! Somebody! Save me!" she cried.

"Pipe down, princess," said Anton. "We'll cut you down."

"Allow me, brothers," said Gottfried as he leapt up to the pole and cut the princess free. Gently, the red maiden fluttered down from the pole and landed on her feet...which just so happened to crunch Lumiere into the dirt. Again.

"Oh, come on!" groaned Lumiere as the red princess stepped off of his head.

"Oh, fair one, behold thy humble servant, Sir Gottfried the Gallant of the Castle Crashers," said Gottfried, kneeling before her.

"My hero," sighed the red princess.

"Oh, no, milady. Merely one of your four heroes."

"One of four? You're the one who cut me loose from the pole, aren't you?"

"...Well, yes..." stammered Gottfried.

"Then you're the one who saved me. Therefore, you're my hero. You know what that means."

"No, I do not."

Saul and Anton uprooted Lumiere in time for the three of them to witness the red princess smothering the surprised Gottfried's helmet with a kiss.

"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Lumiere.

"She's just doing her job," quipped Anton. "Get used to it."


	5. Chapter 4: Finally, a Good Chapter Title

Chapter 4: Finally, a Good Chapter Title

"You never kissed a girl before?" hollered Lumiere. "What kind of whack is that?"

"I may lead our band of mercenaries, but I am still first a knight," grumbled Gottfried, wiping the last of the red princess' lipstick from his helmet. "I live to serve God, the king, and my country, not sleep with every woman I save."

"Why don't you get that stick out of your ass and live a little?"

"Why don't _you_ start following your head instead of your crotch?" shot Anton, trying to maintain his cool.

"And why don't all of you give me something to yell about for once?" butted in Saul.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that they were all in a tranquil meadow outside a forest. And that a small band of bandits had spotted them from across said meadow. And the thieves looked like Jawas from Star Wars, except that their hoods were closed over their faces and they didn't speak gibberish. And one of them was riding an alligator dinosaur thingy with two legs.

I also forgot to mention that before they had arrived at this forest-I mean meadow, they had returned to the castle, asked about the local blacksmith, and gone to said blacksmith to buy new weapons and armor and stuff, and Lumiere picked up a shiny brass compass.

And now, back to the plot in progress.

"HMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!" screamed Lumiere, his head caught in the dinosaur steed's mouth.

The beast carried its hapless prey around as the other three Castle Crashers laid waste to its thief escorts. With them dead, Anton mounted the dinosaur/reptile/thingy and bucked its side with his boot.

"Drop him," he barked. The beast complied.

"Did anybody get the number on that...gator thingy?" moaned a dazed, slobbery Lumiere as Gottfried hoisted him to his feet.

There was no time to answer, for another wave of thieves approached, bows drawn and swords flashing. Their arrows sailed through the air, markedly on target...if their target was Gottfried's shield, of course. Slowly, the red Castle Crasher marched forward, his sword charged with electricity. "Anton, now!" he said.

Anton bucked his reptilian steed and charged forward, cutting down any of the thieves foolish enough to stand in his way. Leaping off of the beast, he fashioned an ice board, slid through the air, cut down another swath of thieves, and kicked off the board into the last such thief's throat.

The other three Castle Crashers mopped up the remaining thieves.

"Now, make haste," said Gottfried. "We must rescue the remaining princesses."

"Wait a sec," said Lumiere. "How do we even know these thieves took them?"

"I saw them abscond with them during our fight with the Husky Barbarian," said Anton. "Plus, the red princess told us-after kissing Gottfried's helmet-that she overheard said thieves talking about taking them to other castles."

"Also, this," said Saul, fishing a tattered contract from a dead thief's satchel.


End file.
